Today I had the following experience with my new mAP lite: I used the integrated magnet to stick it onto a metallic TP-Link 8-port gigabit soho switch. It took me about an hour to debug what I was seeing, but at last I figured that when the surfaces of the two devices were in contact, the ethernet port would connect at 10Mbps full duplex after a long negotiation process and no data would pass through! As soon as the mAP was detached from the switch, everything worked just fine. The exact place on the surface of the switch on which the mAP attached did not seem to make any significant difference.
Obviously there was some kind of interference that impaired the ethernet controller.
I suppose minuscule size comes at a price, but could there be a second revision with some kind of shielding around the board?
have you tried putting some insulator between the map lite and the switch? It could be some kind of grounding issue that’s leading to it.
Then I would try touching the MAP lite to the switch, but backwards so the magnet wasn’t sticking.
Basically - if it interferes just based on proximity (with insulator, but sticking with magnet, or touching but backwards so no magnet) then try it in proximity to other ethernet devices, monitors, tv sets, electric appliances, etc.
Since I’m assuming it’s plugged into the same switch that you’re sticking it to with the magnet, I wonder if a grounding loop is interfering with the signal propagation along the cat5. Have you tried other cables?
Unfortunately I cannot do further tests right now, since it is a production environment (and my only mAPL so far). But I will put them in my to-do list. Thing is, the outside of the mAPL is plastic, except from the ethernet post shield which is exposed and was almost certainly touching the switch case. The cable was not shielded though, just an ordinary cat5e patch with plastic plugs. I should probably try to put just a sheet of paper/plastic between them.
I too have discovered issues with the magnets within the mAP lite. I find if the device is stuck in place with the magnet or the small backing plate that comes with it is placed on the back, the ethernet port will fail and sync to 10mbit with no data passed through it. If you boot the lite without it attached to a metal surface, the etherport works fine
I have 3 mAP Lite and all 3 exhibit the same behavior as mentioned.
The surface does not seem to matter.
I’ve ‘stuck’ it over a switch, on a server, on a UPS, on the rack itself and the result is the same. No data passes through the ethernet.
The moment I remove it from any metallic surface the ethernet works like a charm.
I wonder if we can request a refund from the distributors since this is obviously a design flaw and the device does not work as advertised (at least in my country you are entitled by law for a replacement or full refund in case the product does not work as advertised).
I’ll contact my distributor about returning these.
To add to the design flaw, when data passes through wifi, it will make a high pitch sound which is rather annoying when using the device in a silent room. http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/newsletter-70/94875/6
Does this happen if there’s an insulator between the magnet and the surface it’s stuck to?
(like if you had a strip of electrical tape on the metal, and stuck the magnet to that tape only)
tmbk they tested it thoroughly, but the magnetic field generated by the magnets that hold the device onto something is influenced and deformed by the attached metallic surface itself. this causes interference in the wireless part for sure, and i guess this interference can also influence the ethernet side transformers too.
Magnets are inside, so no matter what you stick it on, there’s always mAP’s plastic body between magnets and surface. Not even ethernet connector can touch it, because it’s covered from back side.
Noise when wifi work - hardware issue, or feature (all work fine except small noise)?
And ethernet that stop work after attach to mettal surface.
Maybe it’s all hardware features?
